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The Inefficacy of Autocracy
Prologue: Following the publishing of On the Construction of Civilisation, Nation Building, and the Golden States by Schnitzengruber, prompted by the union of Corsica and Florence, bladeboy24 wrote The Inefficacy of Autocracy & the Value of the Republic as a responsive thinkpiece, meant to point out flaws in reasoning and establish a school of thought on the study of the governments of the server. The Inefficacy of Autocracy & the Value of the Republic: Since the founding of the server, people have established nations for three reasons: # To wage warfare against dissimilar ideologies and people (Nexus) # To expand, out of lust for conquest (Gallia) # To protect themselves and their work (Government, Corsica-Florence) People have established these nations with different governments in order to serve the nation's purpose most efficiently (likely without reform), though the purpose may not be indefinite or sustainable. As such, the most adaptable form of governance should be the most desired, to preserve the invaluable status quo and ensure peaceful transitions in a country. In Response to the Types of Government: It's worth noting there are many more types of government not debated here. On Monocracy * To begin, the correct term is autocracy. Monocracy is rule by one, but autocracy is rule by one with absolute power, which I believe was the intended meaning. Secondly, I can agree that dictatorships and the like are very efficient for a small, warlike nation, or even a large, warring nation with a small amount of active players. However, war is all they are useful for. They cannot adapt to become a peaceful nation, because at that point the entire population (or active population) is warriors, and they will collapse if they stop warring. Additionally, autocracies are at the second highest risk of a coup, second only to oligarchies. On Oligarchy * In an oligarchy, the elite are constantly vying for more power, or total power, as is human nature. This makes them most susceptible to coups. They are effective for small or centralized (as in, only a few small cities outside of a large capital) nations, but could not govern a growing or large, powerful nation, because unrecognized or growing towns would join another nation or start their own so that they may have their voice heard. This poses danger for the parent nation, because now their coords may be compromised, or a new nation may seek to conquer their former overlords. On Aristocracy * An aristocracy is an oligarchy where the oligarchs (aristocrats) have control over a large amount of wealth, land, or a valuable resource. Seeing as these aristocrats often act as regional administration in order to manage whatever it is keeping them in power, an aristocratic kingdom could control a vast amount of territory effectively. On True Democracy * Due to a lack of support on a technical side from the server, and the usual problems with democracy in actuality, I completely agree that direct democracy is not an acceptable form of government for any nation that intends to be long-lasting or successful. On Representative Republics * Republics have the benefit of citizen participation, regardless of whether or not the representatives make up the majority of the population or not (a good way to avoid this, incidentally, is to have a proportional number of representatives to citizens. This easy solution seems conveniently left out of Schnitzengruber’s piece). Votes can be cast and collected outside of the server, representatives are almost guaranteed to be educated on policy, and it’s likely only those active within the nation would run for the position anyways. A successful republic is established as one from the beginning and therefore doesn’t have to worry about the integrity of the head of the nation, assuming it’s not an elected position, and even then, there are multiple ways to elect a new president/chancellor/prime minister without compromising the reliability of the congress/ministry/senate. On Democratic Monocracy * Electing a sole leader to wield power (likely with a cabinet of close friends or advisers) retains the effectiveness of autocracies in wartime but the ability to quickly adjust when out of it. There are three ways to effectively elect a leader: # Promote from within an elected body # Have the current leader select a successor (approved by reps.) # Interested candidates apply to the elected representatives * Assuming the nation was founded as a republic, there should be a smooth transition of power in all of these. They avoid a messy political campaign and remove the need for large amounts of votes, while retaining elections. On Republics as a Whole * Unfortunately, ‘republic’ has become a positive buzzword used to imply democracy in a state, whether or not there is voting of any sort. Other times, it’s used as a replacement for ‘confederacy’. These instances of poor linguistics should not be used as evidence against the concept, but rather a call to arms, in that more true republics should be founded to correct the record. The Perfect Government * The most effective government that takes advantage of human nature and maximises national resources is a republic, where the leader chooses a successor to be approved by the Senate, which consists of mayors of the towns of an empire (only half of which have to vote for a bill to pass). Mayors are free to choose how the next mayor is selected. Any citizen can propose anything to the Senate or the leader, and they can decide what to do with it. 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